Thus shimmering opener ‘Find Me Where You Look’ is vibrant with the possibilities of burgeoning love, while introspective follow-up ‘The Woods’ contemplates the past from a position of apparent strength. “A few years back I did an exercise where I took a several-hours-long night walk in the woods of Maine and thought through every year of my life from birth to present in chronological order, remembering as much as I could,” as Terepka explained. “I was surprised by how many forgotten memories were stirred up and came out of it with a feeling of empathy for my younger self, as well as a strong desire to not repeat past mistakes.”

But looks closely and the song shows the finest of cracks, fissures inevitably tested by the weight of any serious love. And with these flaws comes the foreshadowing of an eventual fracture. “I know that you love me now / Makes me want to shake off the rest of these ghosts,” as Terepka sings, though ghosts are nothing if not persistent. By the time ‘The Field’ rolls around, there’s a cloud over things. A gentle piano line adds an undeniably romantic tone yet there is disquiet too. The sense of communication beginning to fail. The line between two people glitching. The ominously titled ‘Silence’ follows with something like desperation, as though things are starting to slip through the fingers and all there’s left to do is grasp blindly at what you can.

Closer ‘Saying It’ serves as a fitting conclusion. A “very direct breakup song” as Terepka describes it, which came together quickly with the urgency of the present moment. “When my relationship fell apart, I wasn’t sure I could release the love songs on this record,” Terepka continues. “Then this song suddenly came together and finished the story. It completes the record and grounds it in present reality.” And direct the track certainly is, offering a picture of separation in all of its mundane torture. The cracks now open, the fracture complete. “Golden hour with my dog / Trampling down this forest floor,” as the opening verse plays. “While you grab the rest of your boxes / With your parents helping you out /Six years on the last of you is gone from our house.”

It was so good
It dug into my heart
It turned my whole world into a garden
It dried out under the light

Saying goodbye

Not Yet is out now and available from the Nate Terepka Bandcamp page.

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Fallout, the forthcoming album from Grand Rapids trio Major Murphy on Winspear, is an album concerned with cycles of ruin and renewal. Drawing equally from the wells of nineties indie and seventies soft rock swagger, the sound lives up to these themes with a careful balance of lightness and weight. The result is something not so much overcome by the turbulence of our times but able to surf atop of it. Lead single ‘Time Out’ typifies the style, where the pressing momentum of the drums is matched by an easy-going spirit, highlighting the band’s ability to be at once punchy and languid.

Even water falling don’t run to an end
Somehow, somewhere it will collect
and life begins again

Marem Ladson – A Song to the Siren

Hailing from the northern Spanish region of Galicia and now based in Brooklyn, Marem Ladson makes introspective music that draws on folk and pop and her home country’s rich tradition. Following 2023 EP Baby Light, Ladson has released a standalone single, a gently haunting take on ‘Song to the Siren’, Tim Buckley’s much-covered doom-laden classic. Ladson’s version is soft and intimate but loses none of the original’s power, loneliness and longing washing together as the narrator find themselves shipwrecked in search of love. The cover originally appeared on the Musicians For a Free Palestine benefit album, a compilation organized by Babehoven’s Maya Bon, Andy Molholt and Raquel Denis, which is still available and very much worth your time.

make yourself at home – High

Hailing from Nashville, Tennessee, make yourself at home—that’s Billy Campbell (lyrics/rhythm guitar), Zach Tittel (lead guitar), Thomas Luminoso (bass) and Husam Suboh (drums)—is a band working at the intersection of shoegaze, noise rock and indie. ‘High’, their latest single via Second Floor Recording Co., serves an the ideal introduction for those unfamiliar with their sound, where angsty desperation meets carefree defiance. “Fucking up, falling down / Another year of trying not to drown,” as Campbell sings in the opening lines. “How can I say what’s on my mind / When all I wanna do is go get / high?” Hopelessness has never sounded so cool.

Nate Terepka – The Woods

“A few years back I did an exercise where I took a several-hours-long night walk in the woods of Maine and thought through every year of my life from birth to present in chronological order, remembering as much as I could,” explains Nate Terepka. “I was surprised by how many forgotten memories were stirred up and came out of it with a feeling of empathy for my younger self, as well as a strong desire to not repeat past mistakes.” He wrote new single ‘The Woods’ the next morning, the latest taste of his upcoming album Not Yet which encapsulates an EP willing to grope into the messy heart of life in order to hold aloft its love and truths. Intuitive in its rhythms yet finely crafted in style, ‘The Woods’ represents the work of an accomplished artist driven by emotional necessity. Watch the video with animation by James Thatcher below:

Not Yet is out on the 19th July and available to pre-order now via Bandcamp.

Noa Jamir – Indebted

“This is a song written for Little Noa, who often struggled with standing up for herself,” explains New Orleans-based songwriter Noa Jamir of new single ‘Indebted’. “While writing it, I channelled all of the things I wish I’d said in moments when I needed to defend myself, but felt too powerless to do so.” The resulting track presents an assured brand of folk rock which pairs an understated sound with almost conversational vocals. The track builds subtly across its runtime but never quite breaks its controlled burn, though the result is all the more powerful for it. There is no need for yelling or bombast here. The message is simple and full of conviction. Able to operate on its own terms.

I’m tougher than I look
My thoughts would scare you off
if I told you everything
And you’re not quite as tall as I recalled you to be
I used to let you look down on me
Now, we’re standing eye to eye
Eye to eye

Saffron – Star Child

Late last month, San Diego psych pop outfit Saffron released a four track cassette by way of farewell. The band, comprising mainly of Ali Mehraban Ramirez (Guitar, Vocals, & Songwriting), Galia Shakked (Guitar and Vocals), Audrey (Drums), Ryan Ebaugh (Guitar and Saxophone) and Cameron Rogers (Bass), made a name for themselves with their experimental live shows, which saw songs morph form set to set in an exercise in freedom and improvisation. The tape is a little different, presenting Saffron at their most “pop,” four songs crystallized into a final, perhaps more easily digestible form. Nowhere is this better illustrated than on final track ‘Star Child’, a sunny and easy-going, Yo La Tengo-style indie pop song that’s all shambling percussion and hooky guitar.

Solid Blood – All I Need

Penned over a span of several years between Brooklyn and Houston, Solid Blood’s new EP Western Sun feels very much a product of the various environments in which it was created. Graham W. Bell looks to preserve the small details of life amid a wider unease, carving out an introspective, inquisitive space in which we might shelter from the dire state of the world. With the EP coming soon via Rue Defense, lead single ‘All I Need’ introduces the style. Where warmth and intimacy are shadowed by an awareness of the wolves at the door.

Wanda What – Big Tree

Building on the nostalgic brand of bedroom pop that made previous LP Startin’ Drama a success, new full-length Dyke TV sees Wanda What (AKA LA’s Harmony Reynolds) push their self-described ‘dyke rock’ sound to new heights. There’s a central tension to the Wanda What project, one which might be crudely described as the friction between dreams and reality. There’s a tangible desire for the glamour and celebrity of stardom, something Reynolds owns wholeheartedly within the Wanda What persona, though this is balanced by a more earnest, down-to-earth side too. It’s no surprise then that Dyke TV vacillates between moods—playful and serious, ironic and sincere—but what makes the project so exciting is its willingness to embrace this duality. With a newfound country twang, latest single ‘Big Tree’ offers a glimpse of the human behind the personality, landing somewhere between sincere bedroom pop honesty and lonesome cowboy croon.

‘Big Tree’ is out now via Youth Riot Records and available from the usual places. Dyke TV is coming soon.

Yon Loader – Another Year

After sketching out a series of demos which would come to form his self-titled debut album, James Stuteley of Aotearoa project Yon Loader took the songs to an array of friends and collaborators who helped realise their full potential. Those involved is something of a who’s who of the New Zealand indie scene with members of acts like members of Recitals, Welcomer, For Everest, Model Home, Fouler, First Move and Bad Friend all contributing, as well as engineer and producer Harry Lilley. With the album’s release pencilled for later this year on Tiny Engines, Lead single ‘Another Year’ shows how this team elevate the Yon Loader sound into something as hefty as it is detailed, Stuteley’s intimate emo-adjacent lyricism given all the supporting momentum it deserves without being overwhelmed.

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Tracklisting:

Nectar – Slouch
Moon Racer – New Crush
Haley Heynderickx – The Bug Collector
M. Grig – Millpond Way
Lisa/Liza – Vanity Plate
Tancred – Reviews
Cloud – Disenchanted
Wellness – Fake Flowers
Kraków Loves Adana – Heather
Spartan Jet-Plex – Alright
Clara Marie – Bike or Boat
Nate Terepka – Tempelhof
Never Betters – Pictures
The By Gods – Wait Up
Talk, Tired Thanatoid – I Hit a Car
FRANKIIE – Glory Me
Queen of Jeans – U R My Guy
Grievances – Bliss
Painted Forest – Witness
Pema – Depend
VedeTT – It Seems To Be Natural
Boys – End of Time
Sun June – Young
Buck Meek – Cannonball
Young Jesus – Storm

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The EP is intended as an exploration of being alone. As the press release describes, it charts “isolation from different angles; needing it, reaching for it, and acknowledging its importance while also trying to reach beyond it.” As such, the record is not necessarily a lonely one, with solitude held as a nuanced and complicated thing that can be as rewarding as it can damaging. The rich layers of the instrumentation feel allegorical in this regard, a collision of different sounds and tones that weave a mood difficult to pin under any one tag. Upbeat, wistful, peaceful, a little sad—all could be used simultaneously, and still not quite get close to the true feel of the songs.

We’re excited to share, ‘Tempelhof’, the opening track from Sunlight Farm and one which really sets out the Nate Terepka style. Written during a late evening bike ride around the titular location, a now abandoned airport in Berlin’s Tempelhof-Schöneberg borough, the track is populated by an array of fond strangers and warmed by crepuscular sunshine, though Terepka positions himself just slightly outside of their world. Instead, he is a viewer, a tourist alone in a foreign country, immensely pleased to witness such a moment, yet all the same tinged by a certain sadness in knowing that the scene could never truly be his. The result is a nostalgic kind of affection that occurs long before the moment fades, happy to just pass through the scene, to witness and remember it.

Photograph by Megan Hattie

The post Song Premiere: Nate Terepka – Tempelhof appeared first on Various Small Flames.